US Twice Strikes ISIS Targets in Somalia

WASHINGTON DC, United States (Kurdistan 24) - The Command of U.S. forces in Africa—AFRICOM—announced that it had twice struck ISIS targets in Somalia this month.

February 1 Strike

“In coordination with the Federal Government of Somalia, U.S. Africa Command conducted airstrikes against ISIS-Somalia on Feb. 01, 2025,” the U.S. force announced in a statement it issued ten days later, after it had the chance to assess the impact of its attack in the rugged region.

“The joint airstrikes targeted senior ISIS-Somalia leadership in a series of cave complexes approximately 50 miles (80 kilometers) southeast of Bosaso,” AFRICOM explained.

Bosaso lies on Somalia’s northern coast, along the Gulf of Aden. The city has a population of some 170,000.

AFRICOM’s “current assessment is that approximately 14 ISIS-Somalia operatives were killed,” while “no civilians were harmed,” the statement said.

The key figure targeted in the attack was Ahmed Maeleninine. The Voice of America (VOA) identified him as being born in Oman and in his 40s.

AFRICOM described Maeleninine as “a key ISIS recruiter, financier, and external operations leader responsible for the deployment of jihadists into the United States and across Europe.”

February 16 Strike

Some two weeks later, on Feb. 16, AFRICOM carried out a second strike against ISIS-Somalia, also in conjunction with Somalia’s Federal Government.

AFRICOM described the targeted area as being in Northeast Somalia, but refrained from providing further details in order “to ensure continued operations security,” as its statement explained.

AFRICOM said that two ISIS operatives had been killed in the strike.

“Degrading ISIS and other terrorist organizations’ ability to plot and conduct attacks that threaten the U.S. homeland, our partners, and civilians remains central to U.S. Africa Command’s mission,” its statement concluded.

Somalia’s Chronic Turmoil

Somalia has been in a state of near-constant turmoil since the overthrow of its long-time dictator, Mohammed Siad Barre, in January 1991.

Barre was commander of the Somali army, when, in 1969, he led a coup that made him the country’s president. He then ran Somalia, incongruously, as a Marxist-Leninist state, aligned with the Soviet Union.

However, in 1977, after Moscow opted to side with Somalia’s rival in Ethiopia, Barre expelled his Soviet advisors and sided with the U.S. 

Four years after his 1991 ouster from the presidency, Barre died in exile, in Nigeria, in 1995, at the age of 85.